From streamline jumping to strange eigenmodes: Bridging the Lagrangian and Eulerian pictures of the kinematics of mixing in granular flows

Abstract

Through a combined computational-experimental study of flow in a slowly rotating quasi-two-dimensional container, we show several new aspects related to the kinematics of granular mixing. In the Lagrangian frame, for small numbers of revolutions, the mixing pattern is captured by a model termed "streamline jumping." This minimal model, arising at the limit of a vanishingly thin surface flowing layer, possesses no intrinsic stretching or streamline crossing in the usual sense, yet it can lead to complex particle trajectories. Meanwhile, for intermediate numbers of revolutions, we show the presence of naturally persistent granular mixing patterns, i.e., "strange" eigenmodes of the advection-diffusion operator governing the mixing process in Eulerian frame. Through a comparative analysis of the structure of eigenmodes and the corresponding Poincaré section and finite-time Lyapunov exponent field of the flow, the relationship between the Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions of mixing is highlighted. Finally, we show how the mapping method for scalar transport can be modified to include diffusion. This allows us to examine (for the first time in a granular flow) the change in shape, lifespan, and eventual decay of eigenmodes due to diffusive effects at larger numbers of revolutions. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.